UPDATE

The suspended game between Xaverian H.S., Bay Ridge, and Archbishop Molloy H.S., Briarwood, finally ended, with the Xaverian Clippers earning a 4-3 win in 15 innings.

The original game was played on April 8 and was suspended due to darkness after 12 innings.

Both teams relied on solid relief pitching to keep their hopes for a win alive. The game featured a combined 40 strikeouts.

“It was a great high school baseball game,” said Molloy interim head coach Brad Lyons. “We wound up losing the game, but there were no losers in that game.”

Original Post

Molloy, Xaverian Run Out of Light in Suspended Game

After nearly three and half hours, 11 innings and a combined 34 strikeouts, the Xaverian H.S., Bay Ridge, Clippers and the Archbishop Molloy H.S., Briarwood, Stanners are still right where they started – deadlocked in a tie.

Monday’s matchup between the teams at Molloy was forced to be suspended due to darkness with the score tied 3-3. The game shaped up exactly how a contest between two of the CHSAA’s top teams should have been – an intense matchup featuring dominant pitching.

Molloy senior pitcher Donovan Armas turned in seven scoreless innings of relief, while Xaverian junior hurler Anthony Sigismondi almost identically matched Armas by tossing a scoreless 6.2 innings out of the Clipper bullpen.

Each reliever only gave up one hit apiece, with Sigismondi tallying 12 strikeouts and Armas – who will pitch at Villanova University, Villanova, Pa., in the fall – striking out 11 Xaverian hitters.

Hofstra University, Hempstead, L.I., bound senior pitcher Greg Boyle started the game for Molloy and was a little shaky. The Clippers scratched out an unearned run off an error by Stanner senior shortstop Nick Dorcean in the top of the second inning for the first run of the game.

The Clippers added two more runs in the top of third to take a 3-0 lead, after two perfectly executed hit-and-run plays by sophomore left fielder Nick Meola and senior first baseman Billy Magro.

Xaverian sent senior lefty Dom Napoli to the hill for the start, and he cruised through the first two innings. But in the bottom of the third, the Stanners loaded the bases with nobody out.

Junior center fielder Liam Slattery drove in a run on a sacrifice fly to right field, and senior second baseman Chris Piteo followed with a RBI groundout, which could have been a double if not for a diving stop by Xaverian senior third baseman Chris Muller. The Stanners settled for two runs in the frame.

After Boyle pitched Molloy out of a jam in the top of the fourth, a sacrifice fly by junior first baseman John Young tied the game at three.

The first two Stanners reached base on hits in the bottom of the fifth against Napoli, but Sigismondi retired the next two hitters in order to get the Clippers out of the jam.

Both teams had trouble mounting any sort of offensive threat against the opposing team’s reliever. The Clippers threatened by getting a runner to third base in the top of the 11th inning, but Armas proceeded to strike out the side and send the game into the bottom of the 11th inning, as the darkness began to set in.

Molloy junior designated hitter Virgilio Jimenez cranked a Sigismondi offering off the left field fence to start the inning, but Meola gathered the carom and fired a strike to second base to nail Jimenez trying to stretch his base hit into a double. The Stanners could not mount a rally, and finally the umpires deemed that it was too dark to continue.

The game will resume in the top of the 12th inning the next time these teams are scheduled to meet – Tuesday, April 19 at Molloy.